All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (9 page)

“Too late!
 
You told me he got you premium tickets for Billy Elliot,” she reminded him.

“Me and my big mouth!”
 
Morgan covered his mouth as if to recall his earlier words and then laughed at the futility of the action.

He sat down when he got to his desk and got straight back into whatever he’d been doing.
 
He could be playful at times but was one of the hardest workers on the team.

***

Finally they were alone in the office and Stephano came over to her desk.

“Are you insane?” she asked him.
 
“It will take me a year to finish those chocolates!”

“A year?”
 
He raised his left eyebrow questioningly, in the sexy way he did sometimes and her insides quivered.
 
“I know how much you love those chocolates.”

“You’re so unflattering!” she accused, but burst out laughing because he was right.
 
She could easily go through the entire box in less than a month if she didn’t impose some restrictions on herself.

“Are you free on Saturday?”

His question immediately killed her laughter.

Saturday.
 
Not tonight.

It felt like déjà vu.

Was he taking the other woman out tonight?

“That depends...” she began hesitantly.
 
The expensive box of chocolate indicated that he didn’t think that she was just a cheap fling, but like her he earned a yearly six-figure salary plus bonuses.
 
The box of chocolate, though it cost more than it did to feed an average family of six easily for a week, wouldn’t have made a serious dent in his bank account.

“I’d like to take you for dinner at Sukho.
 
I’ve heard the food there is great.
 
It’s in your area, so you won’t be too far from home.”

She’d also heard good things about the Thai restaurant on Fulham Road and had been contemplating a takeaway order if she couldn’t convince her brother and his fiancée to let her treat them to dinner one evening soon.

“As friends,” he added when she didn’t give him an immediate response.

“Okay,” she agreed.

Stephano smiled and somehow she felt that she had agreed to far more than a meal between friends.

The rest of the week flew by.
 
Stephano was out of the office on Thursday and Friday.
 
He and another three members of the team went to Cadbury’s Head Office in Uxbridge for a series of meetings with top officials.
 
The US company, Kraft, had taken over the privately-owned UK business company two years ago and was embarking on a charm offensive to woo the British public.

***

Natalie peered through a slit in her heavy blinds and watched Stephano as he double checked that he had the right address before opening her gate.
 
He sent a questioning glance at the iron-grey 6 Series Convertible parked in her driveway.
 
It wasn’t a typical ladies’ color and even the BMW dealer had been surprised at her eventual choice, but she loved her car.

She pulled back as Stephano covered the walkway with his quick, purposeful stride.
 
She really needed to stop peeping through windows at him.
 
She was behaving like a peeping Tom, or the female equivalent, but she couldn’t help herself.
 
She loved to
 
watch him walk.
 
He had such a confident, sexy walk—his hips moving in a manly rhythmic way that made her insides quiver.

She stood at the door for a few moments after he pressed the buzzer before she opened it, trying not to appear too eager.
 
His eyes swept over her hair, which she’d had curled for a change, lingered briefly on her cleavage which she was showing to maximum effect in a red sheath dress with spaghetti-thin straps.
 
The dress was simple and would be unremarkable on a shapeless woman, but it followed Natalie’s curves lovingly, dipping in at her tiny waist and hugging her full hips and thighs.

“Come in for a moment,” she invited.
 
“I’ll just get my wrap.”

She heard Stephano’s muffled gasp as he caught a view of her from the back.
 
She smiled to herself as she reached into her small cloakroom for the soft black wrap which complimented her shoes and bag.
 
Earlier she’d tried red accessories and found the ensemble too bold, too in-your-face sexy.
 
Black added sophistication and subtly muted the vibrant color of the dress.

With a twist of her wrists she settled the wrap over her shoulders and turned to face Stephano.
 
He was looking around her tidy living room, but she sensed that he’d looked away a split second before she’d turned.

“Nice place,” he complimented.

“Thank you.”
 
She was proud of her house.
 
Decorating was her only hobby apart from reading and she had done most of the work herself.

He placed his hand at the back of her waist as she preceded him through her front door and towards his car.

“I need to buy myself somewhere soon,” he said, envy tingeing his voice.
 
“I can’t keep living with my parents.
 
It’s becoming embarrassing.”

“Wouldn’t you miss living at home and having your mother pamper you?” she teased as she adjusted the seat belt across her chest.

“I did miss home when I shared a flat with three other students during my first year at King’s College.
 
They were dirty and noisy and life was an endless party.
 
I don’t know how they got any
 
work done.
 
I spent most of the time back at home, so I didn’t renew my contract for a second year.”
 
Stephano laughed.
 
“But maybe I should have used the opportunity to make a run for it.
 
My mother behaves as though I’m divorcing her every time I mention buying my own home.”

“I wanted to stay at home when I went to university, but my mother insisted that I needed to be more independent.”
 
She said the words lightly; he could have no idea of how traumatic leaving home had been.

“My mother probably wouldn’t blink an eye if I told her I was getting married tomorrow and moving my wife into the house.”

Natalie laughed at the image.

“I’m sure she would put her foot down if you tried!”

“You don’t know my mother.” Stephano continued solemnly, “Take my advice: never have an Italian mama.”

“Okay,” she agreed equally seriously and then they both burst out laughing at the absurdity.

“Would she be okay if she knew that we were…” Natalie let the sentence tapered off.
 
They were what?
 
Friends?
 
Lovers?

“She would be fine.”
 
Stephano sounded confident.

“Are you sure?”
 
She didn’t want him to think that she was accusing his mother of being prejudiced, but Natalie needed to know why he was so certain his mother would be fine with the two of them having a relationship.

“Her best friend Shirley’s Jamaican.
 
And you met my mother on my birthday,
cara
.
 
Did she treat you any differently to the guys?”

“No,” she conceded.
 
If anything his mother had gone out of her way to ensure that she was well looked after.

Natalie had almost not gone to the birthday celebration.

He had announced the first Monday in December, “Guys, my ma’s inviting you all for dinner at the restaurant for my birthday on Friday 16
^th
so don’t make any plans.”

Assumed she wasn’t invited, Natalie had come to work early that morning and logged off her PC an hour earlier than usual at five, not wanting to be there when the last of the group left at six to join the others at the pub and then to the restaurant.
 
The humiliation would have been too much to bear.
 
She had grabbed her bag and was reaching for her jacket when Stephano asked, with something sounding very much like hurt in his voice, “Natalie, aren’t you coming to the restaurant?
 
My mother’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Me?” she’d asked incredulously.

“Yes, I’ve told her all about you and she wants to meet the brave young woman who works in an office with nine men.”

“I didn’t know that I was invited,” she had admitted honestly.

“Of course you’re invited!”
 
Stephano threw up his hands in typical Italian fashion of disbelief.
 
“You were here when I issued the invitation!”

“Yes, but you said, ‘guys’.”

“You’re one of us, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she’d conceded.
 
It was a mark of respect and most times she liked the fact that they afforded her mutual respect.
 
But sometimes she wondered if the guys would have found it as easy to think of her as one of them had she been a petite, blue-eyed blonde.

 
“Well, alright then. Give me another half an hour.
 
I just need to reply to this email and I’ll be ready.”
 
Stephano had picked up his mobile and said, “I’ll just tell the guys to finish their drinks and we’ll leave at half five, instead of six.”

His mother had closed the restaurant for the celebration and it had turned out well.
 
She had flitted around the room encouraging her son’s colleagues to try each of the dishes she had prepared specially for the occasion.
 
She was a petite, expressive woman who entwined English and Italian words in a totally delightful way.
 
It seemed impossible to Natalie that she had lived in the UK for almost thirty years and she’d understood why Stephano’s casual conservations were also heavily punctuated with Italian, especially the endearments—his mother used them at the end of almost every sentence.

Natalie had found disconcerting and oddly appealing to see Stephano’s features mirrored in his mother’s more delicate bone structure.
 
Bizarrely she’d thought that he would look like his father.
 
Santo, his father, wasn’t much taller than his mother and his slightly rotund body showed the effects of her exquisite cooking.
 
Later that evening
 
Antoinette had cupped her son’s face and kissed him on the lips and announced that he was the spitting image of her “Papà”.
 
Natalie had smiled as his mother had hugged him—he had been seated at the time and his mother had been standing and there had been much different in their heights.

His mother had paid Natalie special attention that evening, but she had felt that it was only natural for the woman to gravitate toward the only other female.
 
But treating a dinner guest well was not the same as having that person date your beloved son.

“That doesn’t mean that your mother would be okay with us seeing each other.”

“My mother is a romantic.”
 
Stephano took his left hand off the steering wheel and reached for Natalie’s.
 
“She gave up a life of luxury to run away to Britain with my father.
 
He was a laborer with the construction company my grandfather had hired to build an extension on his mansion.
 
They were both eighteen.
 
They fell in love and when my grandfather had my father fired and sent back to his village, my mother packed a bag and ran behind him.
 
My grandfather’s a powerful man in Italy and my father said that even sending my mother return home wouldn’t have guaranteed his safety.
 
They had to leave the country.”